Starting All Over
by maytheoddsPN12
Summary: In the months following the war, Katniss must confront her inner demons, as well as developing feelings for Peeta. Together, they must negotiate the difficulties of learning to trust and love again.
1. Chapter 1

She's home.

At least, she's home in the most literal sense. Back in her cavernous mansion in the Victor's Village, which is somehow still standing, unscathed, after months of civil war. Time seems to have frozen in this place, preserving every piece of furniture and every crystalline lighting fixture almost perfectly. As if she never left in the first place. As if nothing has changed in the past seven months.

She's home, but it feels _wrong. _Without the bustle of activity in the square, or Gale's light tread on the forest floor, or her mother fussing over a housewife in labor on the kitchen table.

Without Prim's gentle grace and duck-tailed blouses.

When she gets back to the district, she isn't sure what to think or do. Fresh off a murder trial, she finds herself slowly going insane. Counting the cracks in the ceiling or tracing curlicues over her wrists with too-sharp fingernails, then a kitchen knife. Wishing she could die, but never having the courage to do it.

But there are reminders of death outside her door, if she even had the strength to venture through it. Bodies that line the street, decomposing, turning to dust and ash, wait to be wheel-barrowed off into a mass grave. She breathes in their particles. The dead consume her, flow through her veins, become every part of her.

How can she feel alive when she's surrounded by death?

She's unable to handle the bleakness of death that permeates the air around her home. The pungent smell of death and suffering still taints the air, fills her mouth with an imagined acrid taste. Like burning hair and flesh. It makes her stomach turn just to consider it. Better to stay inside her house, her personal prison and sanctuary, far away from the feeble reconstruction efforts.

Katniss doesn't want to help. She's done enough damage to this country already. No doubt that the surviving citizens of District Twelve recognize that. She's no asset to recovery, but rather a catalyst for change.

Change. It's ironic that she's so adept at sparking a rebellion in the hearts of her people, but that she can't find the strength to leave the cocoon of blankets on her bed.

…

It has to be a bad sign that Haymitch is paying Katniss a visit.

"Are you eating?" he asks, not long after storming into her bedroom and throwing the dusty curtains open. He ignores the pitiful whimpering that issues from under her covers in response. "Showering? It's clear that you've been sleeping." Haymitch shakes his head. "And not doing much else, from the looks of it."

Katniss throws an arm across her face, shielding her eyes from the harsh mid-afternoon light. "I'm fine," she grumbles. "Would you leave me alone, now?"

"Can't," he replies, a little too cheerfully for Katniss' sour mood. "As your mentor, I'm obligated to keep you alive."

"_Ex_-mentor," Katniss mutters under her breath.

"Whatever," Haymitch says, and the patented gruffness of bygone days returns to his tone. "Do me a favor, sweetheart, and get out of that goddamn bed. It's been ten days. Enough already."

_Ten days? _Katniss can't fathom how long it's been since her return. Her stomach drops at this bit of precious information. But she can't let Haymitch know that.

She throws the covers aside, plants her feet on the carpet and stands on slightly wavering legs. "Happy?" she snaps at Haymitch, who wrinkles his nose in blatant disgust.

"Overjoyed," he deadpans. "Now, was that so hard?"

She waits until he leaves to crawl back into bed, and stays there for another week.

…

The only thing that lures her from her bed is the smell of food wafting up the stairs.

Greasy Sae assures her that she's here on her own terms, but Katniss has her suspicions. She can tell that Haymitch is skeptical of her will to live, and for some reason, he's concerned himself with enlisting others in the task of keeping her alive.

She's getting _really_ sick of people trying to keep her alive.

But she eats whatever Greasy Sae puts in front of her. Eggs, a thin broth with chives floating in it, sometimes a wild dog stew. Katniss is just grateful that the woman isn't trying to force her to go hunting again for fresh meat. She can't do it. Ever since that slip of the arrow in the City Circle…

Sometimes Greasy Sae brings her granddaughter along for breakfast, and Katniss watches their playful interactions in grim silence. It's stupid, but she sees a little of Prim in the girl, even though she isn't quite right in the head. Sees Prim's inner goodness shining through.

When the girl picks up one of Prim's old hair ribbons and holds it out to Katniss to fix in her matted auburn curls, Katniss swallows her pain and fastens the pink ribbon in a loose bow atop the girl's brow.

She ignores Greasy Sae's pitying gaze.

…

Katniss seldom opens her front door, except when she hears faint mewling and scratching outside.

She hates the tears of relief that spring to her eyes when she finds a mangy, caramel-colored cat glaring up at her from the front stoop. But frankly, she's amazed that this vestige of her dead sister survived.

Buttercup survived countless bombings, survived all-out war, better than his human counterparts.

So she clings to the stupid cat for comfort. When she screens Dr. Aurelius' daily calls. When she tosses yet another letter from her distant mother aside, with no intention of responding. When she boxes up some of Prim's belongings and shuts her bedroom door for what feels like the last time. There's a sense of finality and foreboding in her every action.

It's not like Buttercup was her first choice for comfort, but it's a warm body, and that's basically all Katniss needs right now.

She falls asleep on the couch, cradling the hissing cat in her fragile arms, many more times than she cares to admit.

…

Katniss is alone. With only an ill-tempered cat for companionship, she slowly realizes how truly and completely alone she is. The house is too quiet for her liking, but she can't leave it. Because no matter how isolated she feels inside, she knows that she'll feel even worse out _there._

She's alone.

Until one day, she isn't alone anymore.

**[A/N: Okay, I know that I've made major changes to this story again. I deleted the last thirteen chapters and posted something that I've been working on consistently for the last month. For the first time in a **_**long **_**time, I feel like I have a story worth writing. Please bear with me during this difficult rewriting process, and apologies to anyone who was really invested in the last iteration of this story. I promise that my endgame is the same, I'm just taking a more minimalist approach to get there! Stay tuned for more in the near future (and this time, I'm serious.)]**


	2. Chapter 2

"You're back," she says, frowning at the haggard blond boy crouched in the dirt, a shovel laying askew beside him, and a wheelbarrow full of flowers.

He's coated in sweat and dirt, and probably a fair amount of scars, too. But Katniss doesn't see them. All she can see are his unclouded blue eyes. And she doesn't know if this is really happening, or if it's just some fever dream that she'll wake from in a cold sweat.

"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," Peeta says, pausing in his digging. He wipes his filthy hands on his trousers but makes no move to stand.

Katniss is reeling at this bit of information. Did anyone know that he was coming back? Did Haymitch? And was he planning on telling her?

She bites her lip and nods.

"By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever," he adds, before shooting her a pointed look. "You have to pick up the phone."

Katniss pretends not to hear that.

"What are you doing?" she asks bluntly, pushing a clump of matted hair aside. She's suddenly all too aware of what she must look like to him. No wonder he's squinting at her like she's some undead creature.

"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up." He gestures at the wheelbarrow, which is teeming with some variety of bush. And then he pauses and meets her eyes with a strange intensity. "For her."

It comes together in Katniss' mind in a startling flash. Rosebushes. Not just any rosebushes, but primroses. For the sister she couldn't save.

"I thought we could plant them along the side of the house," Peeta offers in a strained voice. He nods in the direction of a second shovel poking out of the wheelbarrow.

She clenches her fists at her sides, fighting the wave of emotion that threatens to overwhelm her. _No._ She's been doing so well, managing to stay out of bed for a few hours at a time, and she won't let Peeta's unexpected arrival and peace offering undo her progress.

But she also won't allow herself to pick up a shovel and pitch in. Because that would mean that she's accepting Prim's death.

Breathing in sharply through her nose, she nods curtly at him. When she can't find her voice, she bolts back into the house and clicks the lock into place, to safeguard her from the past.

She doesn't see him for another week, but the next time she glances out her window, she notices with a pang of guilt that the bushes have taken root in the patch of earth by her front door, and that he left a shovel stranded on her lawn.

…

The old habits creep up on her, almost without her noticing.

Greasy Sae is cooking her breakfast one morning, regaling her with a horror story about the state of Haymitch's house. "Goodness, there were dirty dishes stacked a mile high!" she exclaims at one point, wrinkling her nose comically. "But it's wonderful that he's sober. He keeps bugging me about Ripper, asking if she's coming back here anytime soon, but I told him that I just don't know." She shakes her head, solemnity overtaking her wrinkled visage. "It's a wonder that anybody came back in the first place."

Katniss pauses in her task of pouring tall glasses of milk. She's arrested by thoughts of Peeta. They seize her when she least expects it, sometimes in the form of an awful nightmare, but more commonly, in quiet moments like this.

"Did he say anything about—" Katniss begins. When Greasy Sae looks up from her pan of scrambled eggs and gives Katniss a quizzical look, she almost swallows the question. "About, you know."

The old woman looks thoughtful. Her cracked lips curve into a pitying smile. "I'm sorry, dear," she murmurs. "I don't know anything." She beats the eggs with a slotted spoon for a few moments before she seems to realize that Katniss' eyes are still fixed on her back, and then she clears her throat. "Some mornings—very early, when I'm walking up the path to the Village—I see a light on upstairs."

Katniss sort of slumps against the counter. Is he sleeping at all? Or just sitting up in bed all night with the lights on, guarding himself against an onslaught of nightmares? It makes Katniss a little sick to consider it.

"If you want, I could check on him sometime," Greasy Sae offers, startling Katniss out of her thoughts.

It's not Katniss' place to worry about him. She tells herself that she's not worried, but it's pointless to lie to herself. No matter what, regardless of the past, she will always worry about him.

So she nods.

"Okay."

…

It starts with Greasy Sae dropping in on Peeta, every once in a while.

"He's looking a little thin," she reports to Katniss that first morning. "And dark circles under his eyes. Doesn't seem like he's sleeping much."

She tries not to pity him.

Then, a few days later: "I didn't see any food in his kitchen. Think I should make a little extra stew and bring it over to him?"

Katniss doesn't hesitate to give her a resounding yes.

Over lunch on a rainy afternoon, with Greasy Sae's granddaughter chasing her shadow in the next room, she broaches the next topic with Katniss. And it's a touchier subject.

"He seems… well, a little lonely," Greasy Sae tells her cautiously, eyeing the knife that Katniss is gripping between her fingers as she cuts her egg salad sandwich in half. "I thought you might be interested to know."

Katniss saws away at the tough bread with her knife, using the arduous task as an excuse not to respond right away. Because, yes, she's interested. The days that pass between Greasy Sae's sporadic reports are a fresh kind of torture. She remembers feeling this way about him while he was in the Capitol, feeling completely on edge not knowing what he was doing, or what was being done _to _him. But it's a different kind of pull this time.

"Besides me, I think Haymitch is the only other person he talks to," Greasy Sae continues. "And we both know his visits are more infrequent than mine."

There's a sharp burst of pain in Katniss' abdomen. She drops her knife and dabs at her mouth with her napkin. "I'm, um, not hungry," she mutters before pushing her chair back. "You can stay as long as you like, just lock the door behind you when you go."

"Katniss," Greasy Sae calls after her, even as she's climbing the stairs wearily. "Tell me if I'm being too forward, but I really think that it might be good to invite him over to eat a meal once in a while. For both of you."

She pauses on the landing and winces at the pinch in her stomach.

"Maybe," she calls back in a feeble voice. And then she hobbles into her room and buries herself under the covers so she doesn't have to feel so guilty.

…

He brings a basket of bread to dinner.

Greasy Sae catches Katniss' eye and nods eagerly. It's encouraging—he's baking, coming back to himself bit by bit—but Katniss can't get past the perpetual crease between his eyebrows, the frown that rarely lifts.

It's mostly Greasy Sae who does the talking. Sometimes Peeta responds with a thin smile, or compliments the meal. But Katniss is silent. On edge. Filled with fear and longing, those twin emotional pulls on her heart.

"The stew's excellent," he says, dipping a bit of his roll into the gravy. "What is it?"

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that," Greasy Sae says with a wink. "But you know what, I really wish that my favorite hunter would get back out in those woods and catch some fresh game for me. A little venison, maybe a rabbit or two."

Peeta's smile ghosts on his lips. "I've always loved squirrel," he says lightly, catching Katniss' eye from across the table.

She flushes deeply and refocuses her attention on the steaming bowl of stew before her.

Really, she's just stunned that he remembers.

…

Greasy Sae doesn't come around so much anymore. Haymitch, even less so. She hears that he's raising a flock of geese in his yard. Really. It's that loud.

When Peeta first starts dropping by on his own, it's… difficult, for both of them. She doesn't trust him, and he doesn't trust her. Without Greasy Sae acting as a natural buffer, they're painfully uncomfortable in each other's company.

She doesn't talk to him. For a few days, or maybe a few weeks. It's hard to say, because time doesn't move in the same way that it used to. Once he's feeling a little more at ease around her, he tries to talk to her. Tries to locate the root of her issue with him.

"Did I upset you somehow?" he asks, in a moment of frustration. Katniss tenses up at the sight of him approaching, like a wild animal. He's like a hunter with his bow drawn, poised to shoot at the most sensitive spot. "Hmm? Is this because of the primrose bushes?"

She's not angry at him, but rage blooms in her chest nonetheless. Because she doesn't want to hear him say that word. She'd sooner kill him where he stands than let him say it again.

He notices the shimmering tears in her eyes before she does. Softens immediately, and moves toward her.

"Katniss," he murmurs. But she knows better.

In a fit of panic, she lets out a primal cry of frustration and tears past him, bolting up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her so hard she fears the walls will crack. It's a trap.

He's right on her tail. Tapping at her door, waiting patiently for her to stop sobbing long enough to ask her if he can come in.

"Go away," she says weakly. Some of the first words she's managed to say to him. _You're back. What are you doing here? Go away. _And then she starts to cry again.

It's quiet for long enough that she thinks he must have gone home. And then she hears her doorknob twisting. Before she can tell him to leave her alone, he's inside.

She didn't have the energy to crawl into bed, so she's sprawled on the floor in a pathetic heap. But Peeta sinks down onto his knees beside her, looking utterly unaffected by her weakness.

Up close, she sees the red rims around his eyes. The sallowness of his skin. The fading bruises on his neck and by his temples. Sees that she's not the only one living out a nightmare every day of her life.

"You're scared," he says plainly, and she watches his lips tighten. Like he's about to cry. He takes in a shuddering breath. "I'm scared, too."

For that admission alone, she doesn't kick him out.

She wakes on the floor with a crick in her neck to sunlight streaming through her window, finds him sprawled on his side with an almost peaceful look on his sleeping face. And, in spite of herself, Katniss allows herself to smile for the first time since she got home.

They can be scared together.


	3. Chapter 3

She's still not used to Peeta being home, even though it's been a few weeks. Doesn't really know how to be alone with him, but it keeps happening with greater frequency. She suspects that Greasy Sae has something to do with it.

When he starts showing up for meals at her house, unaccompanied by Katniss' preferred chaperone, her stomach constricts with fear. But it's hard to turn him away when he is carrying an armload of fresh-baked bread, and wearing an uneasy grin.

So she lets him in.

"I'm on medication," he blurts out one night, startling her so much that her fork clatters against the table and falls into her lap. "If you were wondering. I mean, you must have been wondering."

Katniss gapes at him. What's the appropriate response to something like that? She doesn't have anything to say.

"It helps, mostly. I think it helps me calm down. But Dr. Aurelius says that I need to work on figuring out what's real and what isn't," he tells her, his face drawn and grave. "Just so you know."

She nods dumbly.

Peeta tears off a chunk of bread from the loaf in the basket and takes a tentative bite. "I'm okay," he says after swallowing. "Really."

Even if she doesn't believe him—because the shadows under his eyes are telling—she smiles anyway.

"Good," she says.

…

He's good at pretending that he's okay.

But the sea of prescription bottles on his kitchen countertop suggest otherwise.

Katniss has taken to spending time in his study, watching him idly as he splashes yet another sunset across a canvas. Sometimes he sits in front of it in painful silence, but more often than not, he keeps up a steady stream of conversation.

"Whenever I can't sleep, I come down here and paint," he tells her. And judging from the sheer number of finished canvases, stacked high on the floor or propped up against the walls, Katniss can tell that it's more frequent than he's willing to admit.

She hops off her perch atop his desk and wanders the room, flipping through stacks of paintings. "A lot of sunsets," she comments, turning to look at him over her shoulder. He shrugs.

"It's the easiest thing for me to paint," he says. "Less… memories associated with them."

She ignores the implication—that he avoids painting anything that reminds him of her—and resumes her wandering.

A few framed photos adorn the dusty mantelpiece. Pictures of his life before the Games. Wrestling competitions, school photos, pictures of him and his flour-dusted brothers standing proudly next to a particularly impressive cake display.

But Katniss is drawn to one picture in particular. A tiny framed school portrait of Peeta, who can't be more than eight years old, grinning a gap-toothed grin at the camera. She isn't prepared for the bittersweet twinge in her heart when she studies it closely.

She can't fathom how a boy from Twelve—a boy so undervalued by his own family—could know how to smile like that.

When she turns around, his eyes, underlined with dark circles, are trained on her. She flashes him a guilty smile and backs away from the shelf. Doesn't want to dredge up any painful memories for him.

"Don't you have sleeping pills?" she asks, pausing behind his stool so she can see what he's done so far. And it's striking: a sky ablaze with warm shades of pink and orange, the sun sinking behind the hills that fence in the district.

He chuckles softly. "I don't like taking them," he says with a shrug. "This is better."

She knows. But it still makes her stomach hurt to think that he might sit up all night, fighting sleep because he can't face the nightmares. Forcing himself to paint until his fingers have gone numb and the darkness has lifted.

He couldn't be further from the little boy smiling out of the picture frame if he tried. And it kind of breaks her up inside.

"Well, if it ever gets really bad, you can always call me," she offers tentatively.

"Maybe I will," he says with a faint smile.

Katniss knows that he won't.

…

The days drag by when she's miserable. When she's alone with her thoughts, she finds herself drowning. But it's not like that when Peeta is here.

It's one of those miserable days again. And, as if it couldn't get any worse, it's her eighteenth birthday.

She's alone, and she's embarrassingly emotional, because she's remembering her seventeenth birthday.

It was hardly a celebration, especially because she was in the middle of training for the Quell with Peeta and Haymitch. She remembers Gale coming around in the early evening to teach them how to set traps, remembers him being particularly hostile to Peeta, remembers having to edge her way in between them when a disagreement about snares got a little out of hand.

She remembers thinking that it didn't matter that her own family nearly forgot her birthday. Because she'd already resolved to die in that arena within the month. Celebrating another year of life seemed pointless, at the time.

It still seems pointless.

"Guess it's just you and me," she murmurs to the cat curled up at the foot of her bed. Buttercup hisses in response, but nestles in anyway. Against her better judgment, she reaches down to stroke him behind his ears.

She shouldn't care that Peeta isn't here. But she does.

…

Katniss is pretty good at pretending that she's okay with being alone. Until she isn't anymore.

Usually, when she has days like this and Peeta's around, he knows just what to do. How to coax a smile out of her, how to turn her deep-chested sobs into genuine belly laughs.

He has a rare talent for impersonations. Something that she didn't know about him until he was forced to slip into character, all his usual efforts failing miserably. He'll purse his lips together, and with a single withering stare, he's Effie Trinket reprimanding Katniss for her lack of decorum. Or he'll flash a dazzling smile in her direction and drop his eyelids a fraction of an inch and transform into Finnick Odair before her eyes. It's incredible. Incredible enough to get her to stop crying.

Their dark days rarely coincide.

Peeta warned her once to stay away. "I… I don't know what I'd do," he'd said in a tremulous voice. "I mean, I'm better now. But, I just—I couldn't live with myself. If something happened."

The haunted look in his eyes was enough to compel her to agree.

But it doesn't alleviate any of the guilt she feels, for leaving him to suffer in isolation. Because he's always there for her, even when she doesn't want him to be.

Still. She doesn't know what she would do for him, if she could do anything. How she would handle another one of his episodes.

Katniss likes to think that she'd stand her ground. That she'd be patient and firm, that she'd coach him through it. That she'd help him come back to himself once the shaking had subsided and the flashbacks dissipated.

She'd probably be paralyzed with fear. A perfect target, a slender neck to throttle, if he snapped.

When she sounds the depths of her heart, she comes up with only one conclusion. She wants to be there with him, wants to reap the rewards of making him smile.

But she can't.

Not today.

…

She startles out of a restless sleep, curled up in the fetal position on the couch. It's already dark out—probably well past sundown—and she can't remember if she ate anything before she fell asleep.

Then she hears a knock on the door.

Her mouth goes dry. She's still half-trapped in her nightmares, so it's entirely possible that when she opens the front door, Snow will be standing there in lizard form, his serpentine lips dripping with fresh blood and reeking of cloying rose perfume.

God, she wishes that she had her bow here.

There's that knocking again. More insistent this time, paired with a jiggling of the doorknob. Katniss bites back a scream. As if it mattered if she screamed. She doubts that anyone would hear her.

Armed with a dull kitchen knife, she approaches the door cautiously. Guess she hasn't forgotten her hunter's tread, because she almost floats over the creaky floorboards and makes it to the door without making a sound. She screws her eyes shut before twisting the knob and throwing the door open. Let the mutts take her, it's not like it matters—

"Katniss?" Her eyes pop open when she hears Peeta's voice, incredulous and the slightest bit wary. She sheathes the butter knife in her back pocket and shoots him a quivering smile. He frowns in response.

"H-hi," she says, hating the way her voice trembles. "Um, what are you doing here?"

Peeta leans up against the doorframe, the concerned look on his face settling like concrete. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Why?" she chirps, then grimaces.

He raises an eyebrow. "I don't know. You answered the door with a knife in your hand," he says. "Didn't you hear me calling for you?"

Oh. Her cheeks bloom. "No," she admits sheepishly. "Sorry, I—I just woke up."

She's sure that it's painted all over her face. _It was a dark day. _Katniss isn't great at hiding things like that from him. He's so damn perceptive sometimes.

He looks about as rough as she feels. Bleary eyes and long shadows falling across his face. They don't even have to say the words to each other; it's unspoken, and mutually understood.

"What are you doing here?" she repeats, suddenly feeling defensive. Because he's looking at her kind of funny, like he's scrutinizing her or something. She crosses her arms over her chest and scowls.

His frown lifts unexpectedly, and something like mirth lights up his face. "It's late. I know," he says, shrugging apologetically. "But, I have something for you, and I didn't want to wait until tomorrow."

Katniss heaves a sigh. What's so important that it couldn't wait a couple of hours?

And then he brandishes a single cupcake from behind his back, and she chokes on her exasperated sigh.

It's lovely. Forest green icing, and a white flower, dotted with lavender dye, piped on top. When she examines the sugar bloom more closely, she realizes that it's a katniss flower, and not some sort of primrose as she initially feared.

More than lovely. Breathtaking.

"I—" she chokes out, eyes darting between the pastry in his outstretched palm and the earnest smile on his lips. No, it's too much. Too much for her to handle without little fissures threatening to crack open her stony exterior. As if this day could not get more emotionally taxing, here _he _is on her doorstep late at night, doing something to indebt her to him. Tipping the scales in his favor again. "You—you didn't—"

Peeta smiles, and it almost reaches his eyes this time. "I did," he says smoothly. "What kind of friend would I be, if I didn't make something for you on your birthday?"

He notices the slip of his tongue a moment too late. _Friend. _The word is hanging in the air between them, and he cringes. Because they haven't exactly established what they are to each other. They haven't exactly decided if they're ready to be _friends_, even if it was never going to be an explicit conversation.

Katniss swallows. "I wouldn't hold it against you," she says tentatively. And when he sighs in relief, she knows that's it.

He's her friend. And she's not as panicked about the prospect as she thought she'd be.

"You can come in, you know," she offers, realizing that he's still hovering uncomfortably in the threshold. Probably waiting for her permission to cross that line. He's still not quite ready to invite himself in yet.

He looks so… _shy, _Katniss decides as he takes a cautious step into the house and edges past her. That's not a word she'd ever think to use when it comes to describing Peeta. But look at him. He's smiling at her, undeniably sheepish, when he sets the cupcake down on the dining room table before shoving his hands in his pockets. Like a kid might do.

"I'm sorry," he says to break the silence. When Katniss raises an eyebrow, he quickly elaborates. "About today. Not being here."

She waves a hand. "Don't worry about it." Wonders if her tone sounded too biting, or if it came off as casually as she wanted it to. Because, if she's being honest, she's a little confused here. They don't acknowledge each other's absences. It's just not how it works.

"Katniss, seriously," says Peeta, and his expression matches his words. "I—I knew that this wasn't gonna be an easy day for you. And, well. I wanted to be here more than anything."

He sounds sincere. Looks sincere. Maybe even a little pained.

She tries not to think about it too much.

"It wasn't so bad," she tells him, even if it's a lie. Except she isn't counting this moment. This is easily the highlight of her day, something that makes her stomach clench anxiously to consider. _It shouldn't matter this much. _"I had the cat to keep me company."

When she forces a laugh, she can tell that Peeta isn't buying it. In fact, his frown lines deepen.

"I worry about you," he says, softly enough that she isn't quite sure that she heard him right. "I don't… like the thought of you being all alone."

Katniss breathes in through her nose sharply. She doesn't like the thought of Peeta alone either. Didn't like it today. Doesn't like to think of those days in the future.

But there's no way that she can bring herself to say that.

"You shouldn't worry," she says briskly.

Peeta is silent for a beat, but then he graces her with a tight smile. "Too bad," he says, shrugging. "I already do."

He knows better than to ask about her day, and she knows better than to ask about his. So Katniss knows that the conversation is winding down at this point. Not much left for them to talk about at this point, anyway.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Peeta says suddenly, reaching into his back pocket. Katniss narrows her eyes at him until she sees what he's holding out to her in the palm of his hand.

It's _the_ _picture_. The picture of eight-year-old Peeta grinning a toothless grin at the camera, his hair combed back wetly and practically glistening under the fluorescent lights. But the colors are marbled, the lines a little shadowy. Dreamlike.

If it's possible, Peeta looks more embarrassed now than he did when he gave her the cupcake.

"Did… did you draw this?" Katniss asks as she takes the picture from him, peering at the tiny square portrait incredulously. When she lifts her eyes to him, he nods. "Peeta…"

"It was nothing," he hedges. "I don't know. I remember you looking at the picture in my study. And, I guess I just thought… um. I thought you might want a copy, or something."

She actually takes a little pity on him. He looks mortified, like maybe it was a little too forward of him to do this for her. But she doesn't want him to feel like that.

Katniss wants him to know what this means to her.

Words fail her. She's not good at knowing what to say, how to adequately thank someone for a kind gesture. Peeta should know that better than anyone.

She bridges the distance between them and, even though she's slightly terrified of what might happen next, she curls her arms around his neck and rests her chin on his shoulder.

They're both rigid at first. Katniss thinks for a moment that she made a mistake, that maybe it was better when they were just neighbors and tentative friends. And now she's crossed this invisible line, and she's feeling vulnerable because it's an emotional day, and she wants to pull away and lock herself in her room when she feels his sharp exhale in her ear. He wraps his arms around her waist and they stand like this for a minute, breathing hard and clinging in ways they didn't know they needed to. _Wanted _to.

It's the first time they've touched since he came home. And they're both letting it happen.

It doesn't have to mean anything more than _thank you_, or _I'm glad we're friends_. Katniss doesn't mean it as anything more than that. And she's pretty sure that Peeta would agree with her.

It's a good day after all.

…

When Katniss decides that Peeta's picture belongs in the locket he gave her, there is no turning back.

So she fishes the locket out of the depths of her sock drawer. Runs her nails along the edge to find the groove in the metal and pries it open with relative ease. Tries not to let her gaze linger for too long on Prim's face, because she has already grieved enough for one day.

A sense of finality overcomes her as she removes the photos of Gale and her mother. Unnecessary emotional baggage. At some point, she needs to cut her losses and stop grieving the people who chose to leave her behind. She needs to stop feeling sorry for herself, to stop yearning for people who are very much alive, but dead to her in spirit.

Katniss studies the picture of Peeta. It's fitting, laid side by side with Prim's photo. Immortal youth, captured in rare moments of joy, preserved in a silver locket for eternity. If Katniss thinks of it that way, it's a blessing and not a crushing blow. She can open the locket and see their smiling eyes and upturned lips whenever she wants, to remind herself of how things used to be.

How things used to be.

She falls asleep with the locket enclosed in her fist, and it's easily the best sleep she's had in months.


	4. Chapter 4

Katniss has a therapist now. Well, she's always had a therapist. A court-mandated therapist, but she's been screening his daily phone calls ever since she came back to Twelve. It took some convincing from Peeta to talk to him in the first place.

Honestly, she isn't even sure how he talked her into this. She supposes that he's still as much of a smooth-talker as he was before.

She talks to Dr. Aurelius every day. At least, she picks up the phone when he calls at eleven o'clock each morning and makes noncommittal noises to prove that she's still on the line when the silences on her end drag on too long. Because she doesn't really want to talk.

"Tell me about your daily routine," Dr. Aurelius prompts her during one conversation. And Katniss just sits there with the phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder with her lips pursed tightly because she doesn't really have an answer.

He tries a different approach. "What were some of the activities that you used to enjoy?"

Well, that's a simple question. "Hunting," she replies automatically, before her throat tightens. "But I, um… I haven't gone."

"And why is that?"

Her eyes burn with unshed tears. She's sure that the sight of a bow would send her into a tailspin. That the feel of the string between her fingers would catapult her back in time, to the moment that she twisted around and shot Coin through the heart instead of Snow, to the moment that she watched her lifeless body fall over the balcony and crash to the ground, to the moment that she tried to chew her nightlock pill free from its hiding place and found Peeta's hand instead.

She can't shoot. She can't kill. Not now, maybe not ever.

Dr. Aurelius clears his throat. "Well, perhaps there's something else you could do. Work through your emotions creatively."

Unbidden, she thinks of Peeta. Thinks that this is advice better suited for him. She wonders if the doctor has his notes mixed up or something, if that's why he's telling her this. Because if there is one thing that she is not—and she's not a lot of things—it's creative.

But she has a glimmer of an idea.

…

When she shows up in Haymitch's yard, the geese flocking around her feet and honking to herald her arrival, he reacts as if a miracle has just occurred. And maybe one has.

"Well, look at that," he marvels, shaking his head as he wades through the fowl to greet her. "She's alive, after all."

"Nice to see you, too, Haymitch," Katniss tells him dryly.

He chuckles and tosses a few chunks of stale bread to the geese on the far side of the pen so that they have some space to talk. "I'm just surprised, is all," he says. "Thought you were down for the count, but I guess I was wrong."

"Wow, thanks for your vote of confidence."

"You know that I never stopped betting on you," Haymitch says, smirking. But she catches something in his eye. A flash of relief, maybe. And Katniss thinks that it's not so crazy to think that he was counting on her to get better.

He surveys her face. "I assume that this isn't purely a social call," he deadpans. "What do you need, sweetheart?"

For some reason, the term of endearment doesn't rankle quite as badly as it used to.

She leans up against one of the pine posts that keep the geese fenced in, crossing her arms over her chest. "I needed to ask you something," she says, and his eyebrows perk up, no matter how hard he's trying to appear disinterested.

See, they're both out of practice.

"About Peeta." Haymitch gives her a pointed look. Because it's the only thing they have in common anymore.

Katniss nods. "Yeah."

"You want to know how he's doing. How he's _really_ doing," Haymitch clarifies, filling in the blanks for her.

Now she's sheepish. "Well… kind of. I had this idea…"

This isn't something Katniss ever imagined herself doing. Asking Haymitch for advice about therapy. But this is a unique kind of situation.

So she tells him what Dr. Aurelius told her, that she needs to find creative outlets. How it made her think of Peeta, and the plant book that they used to work on together, before the Quell. And how she thinks that they could record their memories in a book. Work through the grief in a constructive way. Together.

Haymitch's eyebrows are knitted together while she talks. It's like he's actually _listening_ to her, now that he's not perpetually soused. She doesn't know if it's a relief, or if it's too much of a change for her to process.

"You want my honest opinion?" he asks once she's finished, chewing on a ragged thumbnail. Katniss tries to temper her frenetic energy, but it's useless. She thinks that she's found a solution, a hidden path out of the labyrinth, and she just wants confirmation.

She just wants to know if she can do something for Peeta, after all he's done for her.

"I think…" Haymitch pauses while he watches the geese squabbling over a patch of undisturbed grass, then turns his attention back to Katniss. "I think it'd be good for him."

"You do?" Her cheeks bloom with vitality.

Haymitch nods slowly. "Yeah."

It registers with Katniss once the wave of relief has washed over her that he's not smiling. That he's wearing this almost somber expression. "He's… not doing well on his own, sweetheart," Haymitch says, keeping his voice low. "You probably know that."

There's that familiar piercing pain in her chest. She's so distracted by it that she can't find the words to speak. Wouldn't know what to say if she could.

"He needs this," Haymitch adds, nodding at her. "And, damn it if I'm wrong, but… he needs _you._"

Katniss' lips move, but no sound comes out.

"And maybe you need him, too."

…

Peeta's quiet at dinner, and Katniss suspects that it has something to do with his phone call to Dr. Aurelius.

He glances up at her occasionally and offers a wan smile before returning to poking at his rations. And as much as she wants to ask him what's wrong, she can't. It's another invisible boundary between them.

She thinks about what Haymitch said this afternoon as she chews her pasta in silence. About how Peeta's not doing as well as he'd have her believe. It makes her think that maybe Dr. Aurelius increased his medication, or said something to make him feel like a caged animal.

She's familiar with the feeling.

The funny thing is, up until a few weeks ago, she saw him that way, too. A wild animal that might pounce at the slightest provocation. And then she realized that she was seeing him the way he saw her in Thirteen. A mutt. A monster. She wasn't—_isn't_. And neither is he.

"Hey," she says, in a gentler tone than she's used to speaking in. Peeta's head snaps up at that. She can't miss the fear prickling in his features, the fear that takes a few moments to dissipate, and tries not to blame him for it. "Can I talk to you about something?"

He swallows hard, his throat bobbing. "Okay." But he still looks fearful.

Katniss decides that it's better not to speak. She excuses herself from the table and disappears into the study, where she keeps the book. For a moment, she grazes the leather cover with her fingertips, feels the well-worn cracks.

This was her family's plant book, but she's about to give it new life.

She sets it down in front of Peeta when she crosses back into the dining room. Watches him pore over it, the tension lifting from his shoulders and the light returning to his eyes as he flips through the pages, brushing them with reverent fingertips. And then he pauses on the last page. The last page that he worked on, all those months ago, before the Quell. A dandelion blowing in the wind.

"I thought we could work on it together," Katniss says, when she's brave enough. When her voice is strong enough. "But, you know. For the people that we… we lost." Peeta slowly meets her eyes, and she doesn't shy away from his gaze. "I write, you draw."

He's quiet. And she feels her resolve starting to crumble—maybe Haymitch was wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. "I—I mean, if that's okay with you."

Her heart thuds uncomfortably in her chest. Then Peeta cracks the tiniest of smiles.

"I think I'd better draw," he murmurs, and it takes Katniss a second to react. She blinks and lets out a startled chortle. "If that's okay with you."

She bites her lip to keep from smiling. "Yeah," she tells him. "It's okay."

…

He can't do it at first.

It's when Peeta's shading in a drawing of Rue, the little girl standing on her toes like a bird about to take flight, that he starts bearing down on the paper with his colored pencil. Hard.

The sharpened point snaps, and that's when he does, too.

Katniss doesn't know what to do, just remains paralyzed in her chair as he starts shuddering. Violently shuddering, like he's lost control of his body, and maybe—terrifyingly—his mind. And she doesn't know if she can save him.

She contemplates getting Haymitch, calling Dr. Aurelius, doing _something_, when he forces himself to stand on shaky legs and grips the back of the wooden kitchen chair until his knuckles turn white.

"Peeta—" Katniss wheezes, as if the air has been forced from her lungs. She can't get anything out beyond his name, and really, would it matter if she did? Would he even hear her?

His eyes snap to hers, and though they're wild and dilated, they aren't clouded. At least she can take some comfort in that. "I—need something to hang onto," he gasps. "Until it passes."

She nods, unable to speak. And she waits.

It doesn't happen every time they work on the book. Actually, it doesn't happen much at all, these episodes, which Katniss is kind of surprised about. From what Haymitch intimated, she expected Peeta to be a puddle whenever he had to confront the past. But he's surprisingly lucid when it comes to that.

But when it does happen, she's terrified for a split second. Not that he'll try to kill her, but that she'll lose him all over again. That he'll have to go back to the Capitol, and leave her here to battle her demons alone. It's something she can't let herself consider for too long, because she doesn't want to think about the implications of thoughts like that.

She's not terrified that he'll hurt her. She's terrified that he'll get hurt again.

So she waits out the storm. And when the energy leaches out of him, and he sags into the chair, pale and haunted, she's there to see him through to the other side.

He always stutters out some apology, as if he had any control over it. And he always seems genuinely surprised when Katniss brushes it off and touches his hand, to calm him.

"If you don't want to do this anymore…" he'll say sometimes, meeting her eyes with a guilty look.

But Katniss shakes her head every time. "I want to," she tells him.

There's always a pause, and then he smiles. "Me, too."

…

He asks her one day about the stack of unopened letters on her coffee table, and even though it's an innocent question, she can't help but snap at him.

"Look, I just—really don't think that's any of your business," she fumes, actually setting her pencil down and meeting his eyes with a hard stare. "I'll open my mail when I feel like it. Okay?"

Peeta looks kind of stunned. "I wasn't trying to pry," he says carefully. "I just—"

"Please," Katniss insists, her eyes welling up with tears and betraying her hardened exterior. "Can we not talk about this right now?"

He backs down, eyes going wide when he sees her trying not to cry. "Okay."

Katniss sniffs, albeit pathetically, and returns to her task of recalling Finnick's memory. But her heart's just not in it, and she can't seem to focus. Not when he's looking at her like this, like she's more fragile than he is.

"They're from my mom," she says without thinking, not looking up from her work. "But I just—I can't open them." Her eyes start to water again, and she has to blink furiously to stop it. "I don't want to know what she has to say. Or what I would say to her."

Peeta's still staring when she finally lifts her eyes to him. "Sorry," she says gruffly, swiping at her eyes. "You didn't need to hear that."

He shrugs. "It's okay."

"No, I shouldn't complain," she concedes, realizing how terrible she must sound to him, a boy who lost his entire family without getting the chance to say goodbye. Not that he was close with them, from what she can surmise, but still.

Peeta settles back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. "Well, maybe that's true," he says. "But you don't have to feel guilty for feeling like that."

Katniss purses her lips and drops her eyes to the blank page before her.

"She's still alive, though," Peeta adds, almost as an afterthought. "And she's thinking about you. Probably worrying about you."

She scoffs. "You know, I kind of doubt that."

"I don't," he says, and when she looks up at him with furrowed eyebrows, he looks grave. "All I'm saying is… she's family. You're lucky to have that."

_Lucky? _If there's one word that Katniss would hesitate to use to describe her life, it would be _lucky. _Lucky to be alive, lucky to have her emotionally unavailable mother in her life. It's just a farcical idea.

Katniss hums and picks up her pencil. "Maybe." But she's unconvinced.

…

She doesn't tell Peeta, but one night, she opens the letters.

Her mother is in Four. Helping Annie cope with her loss, which almost makes Katniss laugh bitterly, because if anyone is wholly unqualified to counsel the bereaved, it's got to be her mother.

But she does share some news: Annie's pregnant. It's incredible and heartbreaking all at once, and Katniss isn't sure whether she should send her congratulations along or offer condolences. Because it's a child that will never know its father, a tragedy so unfathomable she can't even conjure up feelings of empathy. She just can't wrap her head around it.

And she wants to know how Katniss is doing. Each letter conveys an increasing degree of franticness, an increasing amount of sorrow. She talks about Prim sometimes, about how much she misses her baby, and even though Katniss can relate, she can't help but feel a little hurt that her mother never says that she misses _her._

She doesn't owe her mother anything.

She writes to her anyway.

…

Dr. Aurelius would call this 'progress.' Between the book and reaching out to her mother after months of neglect, Katniss is slowly coming back to herself.

But there's nothing as significant as the day she returns to the woods.

She can't remember the last time she gulped in this much fresh air. It almost hurts her lungs to breathe it in, almost hurts her eyes to look up at the brilliant sun.

Hunting is out of the question, for the first few days, at least. But she can gather, and she can set snares, even if they aren't as accomplished as Gale's were. She picks wild strawberries and chives and manages to trap a rabbit, and actually finds herself mentally sorting out a dinner menu.

And when she finally has the courage to pick up her bow, she trembles. Squeezes her eyes shut and releases the arrow, not wanting to see it find its target. When she wrenches them open again, she finds a yearling lying prone on the forest floor, twitching slightly as the life drains out of its wide eyes.

It gets easier after that first kill.

The woods will never be the same without Gale. _She'll _never be the same, but it's something she needs to make herself do.

…

She learns things about him that she wouldn't have learned if this hadn't happened to them. If they weren't alone like this, with only each other to turn to.

His stories come in short bursts and end just as abruptly, punctuated by embarrassed silences and cleared throats. She'll mention that she got another letter from her mother, and somewhere down the line, that gets him talking about his own mother. He doesn't say it in so many words, but she can tell from the tightness in his voice that she used to hit him.

And somehow, he still blames himself for it.

"I just keep thinking… she died, because of me. They all did," he says, bowing his head over the open pages, perhaps so he doesn't have to meet Katniss' eyes when he says this. "I cost a lot more trouble than I was worth, didn't I?"

It has to be the lingering effects of the venom. "You can't really think that," Katniss breathes, imploring him to look up at her when she touches his arm with the lightest of brushes.

"I do," he says. And there's no self-pity in his voice when he admits it. "You don't have to placate me, Katniss. I can take responsibility for these things now."

She feels like she might cry, doesn't know why.

"Did you eat?" he asks suddenly. When she shakes her head, he pushes back from the table and heads for the kitchen. "I'll make us something for lunch, then."

Katniss watches him disappear into the kitchen and waits for the comforting sound of him rummaging through her drawers and cabinets before she chances a glance at what he was working on.

A drawing of the bakery. Floral cake displays in the window. The crimson-lettered sign rocking in the breeze. A blond boy visible through the glass.

Now she really might cry.

This must have prompted his stories about his family. And she's kind of relieved that he's able to talk about them without breaking down, but if she's being honest, she doesn't know if she likes him talking about them like this. Taking responsibility for their neglect, their abuse. Peeta wears rose-colored glasses, she knows, but this is too much.

He deserves better than a shimmery, gilded memory of a family that couldn't have cared less about his well-being if they tried.

Peeta returns to the table a short while later, sandwiches in hand, and smiles at her when he sets a plate down in front of her.

"What?" he asks, when he finds her staring at him after he's already taken a bite out of his own sandwich. A nervous smile flits across his lips, and she shakes her head to reassure him.

"Nothing. I was just thinking," she says, before she loses the nerve. "That it doesn't matter what happened before all of this. You're my family now."

When he kind of gapes at her, she doesn't know what to do. So she picks up her sandwich and takes a huge bite, concentrating on the taste of the bread and the life it gives her.

"I'm glad you think that," Peeta says, and when she lifts her eyes to him, he's smiling. Shyly, but smiling nonetheless.

"You're my family, too."


End file.
